Damn near nuked it to sterilize it. No one would even rent the building afterwards and it had to be torn down years later. They had several close calls when they were performing necropsies on the monkeys, as I recall, with at least one person getting jabbed in the finger with a scalpel. There was some thought that they might be able to use that strain as a basis for a vaccine, but apparently it hasn’t worked out.
I second (or third) the recomendation for Hot Zone. The first chapter alone is worth it.
And doens’t Marburg have a 1 in 4 guaranteed kill rate, medicine or no medicine? shudder
Not in this case, fatality rates are up there with Ebola. :::shudder:::
My recollection from the book is that they thouight two people actually had been infected by it, but it wasn’t fatal, or even serious.
Doesn’t matter – it was still an outbreak of Marburg-type retrovirus.
WHO claims outbreak out of control
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/1113908597
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/MHII-6BL2ZB?OpenDocument
Angola in denial.
http://www.keralanext.com/news/indexread.asp?id=184019
Denying that there is a problem is usually a sign that the problem is going to get much, much worse. :eek:
The virus plotted in The Hot Zone was a variant of Ebola, not Marburg. It was named Ebola Reston.
My heart goes out to the victims of this outbreak. This can not be a pleasant way to go, and it would kill me to watch my loved ones go through it.
I’m amazed that the news isn’t covering this like I imagine they should. SARs and the avian flu stayed in the headlines even when only a relative few were affected. Fucking hundreds of people have died in this outbreak, and its barely registered in the papers.
I don’t even want to hazard a guess as to why.
Couple of reasons, I’d say.
- It’s in Africa and, let’s face it, 95%+ of American’s don’t give one good goddamn about something happening in Africa.
- This isn’t the first time an outbreak has occured so it’s ‘news’ value is limited until something occurs which didn’t occur before.
- SARS and Avian Flu were both new (and semi-mysterious) stories and therefore more interesting by definition. Also, both happened HERE.
- Popewatch 2005. Driving a lot of stuff off the front pages.
- Delaywatch 2005. More stuff grabbing front-page-over-the-flap.
Give it time. If the fatalities climb into the thousands it’ll get some real play. Or if it hops to Europe or North America it’ll get some REAL play.
Otherwise it’s a thrice told tale at this point.
Frankly, I hope that neither one of those things happen.
I bet it’s tough to get any US based reporters to cover this. I know I’d hate to be assigned to cover any sort of deadly virus outbreak. Bet that when the new popey freshness dies down this will start to get some traction in the US media.
Pay me a modest chunk of change (say $6K/mo.) and I’ll go. Of course, they probably wouldn’t like what I sent back as stories, as I’d do my damnedest to be like Hunter S. Thompson covering the outbreak. (Ya think The Hot Zone was scary? I’d have the nation in a panic whenever someone got a case of the sniffles! :D)
Nah, I’d send Bosda. That would be worth the money.
I will treat that as a complement, until dueling is legal again.
And then…we meet at dawn, mseur! 
Ah, but I hold a vial of deadly pathogens. So this time the advantage is mine, Dr. Bosda!
A prototype Ebola/Marburg Vaccine is a success.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4612339.stm